Thanks to the recent advances in wireless communication technology, cellular telephones enjoy enormous popularity. While early models were large and heavy, and therefore difficult for a user to carry comfortably, newer models have steadily decreased in size and weight. The cellular telephones which are in use today are compact enough to fit a person's pocket or purse.
While the new models enjoy increased portability, they do suffer from several drawbacks. For instance, their light weight and small size renders the telephones prone to falling, breaking, or simply being forgotten. Additionally, when a cellular telephone user receives a call, a time loss is experienced while the user locates and retrieves the telephone (which may be in her pocket, purse, brief case, etc.). An additional time loss is experienced when the user must adjust the phone's orientation to actuate an answer mode.
In order to overcome these drawbacks, cellular telephones which can be worn on the wrist of a user have also been developed. Some of these devices are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,239,521; 5,274,513; 5,224,076. In all these disclosures a telephone device is typically in the form of a wristwatch fastened to the user's wrist via a strap, wherein a cellular phone mechanism replaces that of a watch in its conventional location. The main components of a cellular phone mechanism, such as transceiver, telephone call initiating means, a keyboard, a voice recognition device, a display, etc., as well as a battery power source, are accommodated within a common case. A microphone and a speaker are usually incorporated within the strap.
One of the problems which is experienced by the wrist-mounted cellular phones in the prior art is that they are difficult for a user to operate. For instance, some of the cellular telephone devices of the prior art remain attached to the user's wrist while the user is conducting a conversation. Thus, a user initiates a call by pressing the keypad of the device while the device is mounted to a wrist, then holds her wrist next to her ear in order to carry on a conversation. Because the microphone and speaker of the devices are fixed in a predetermined location on the device, the user is often required to hold his or her arm in an unusual position in order to line up the microphone and speaker with his or her mouth and ear, respectively. Alternatively, some of the cellular telephone devices of the prior art detach entirely from the wrist of a user, thus requiring that the device be removed from the user's wrist prior to initiating or receiving a telephone call.
In addition, the decrease in size of the cellular phone to that which can comfortably be worn on a person's wrist typically results in a corresponding decrease in the overall size of the keypad of the cellular phone. The small overall size of the keypad in turn requires that the keys of the keypad be smaller and/or closer in proximity. The small, closely spaced keys are difficult for a user to operate, in that the wrong keys may be inadvertently pressed.
A challenging aspect of wrist phone technology design is the antenna section. Typically, prior art wrist phone systems employ an antenna that is located adjacent or very close to the user's skin. In many instances the location of such antennas may lead to unnecessary signal losses. In order to avoid such losses, many users find out that for some or all of their calls they need to remove the wrist phone system from their wrist area: defeating an important purpose of such phones.
Thus, a need exists for an improved wrist-worn cellular telephone device, with improved antenna technology.